Frostbite!

Tennessee has a neat state park running tour, and one of the stops is Cedars of Lebanon state park, which is less than an hour east of Nashville. They host a half marathon that runs around in the park as well on some of surrounding country roads. Some of the roads are paved, and some are gravel. All of them have hills! There is nothing super steep, but it seems that you are either running up or down and rarely run on the flat.

All that's good and just what I need for preparation for the Boston Marathon which is 9 weeks from today. I think the Boston course is similar. I've run the Cedars course twice before. The last time was 2 years ago, and at that time I was in pretty good shape, preparing to attempt to qualify for Boston at the Louisville marathon in late April. (The attempt failed.)

Lester decided he would run with me. He could have gone a lot faster but doesn't have the base miles to really do his best. My good friend Earl needed to go slow. He has been fight hip replacement talk and has managed to avoid that, but he needed to be careful.

The race didn't start until noon my time, which I am not a fan of. I would rather run early, but they didn't ask/consult me. By noon on Saturday it was in the upper 20s and the wind, oh, the wind, was blowing about 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. My goal was to run at a 7.45 pace per mile, which would put me in at 1.41.36. That overall time was not as important to me as the pace per mile.

The bottom line is that we started out well. Actually we started out a little fast for a couple of miles and then got adjusted. We were on pace for 5-6 miles, and then we reached the bottom of the map you see pictured. Then we turned into the wind and started up a long grade. Wow! We lost some time. Then, at about 10 miles, we hit a stretch that has to be the worst thing I have ever experienced in a road race.

We turn onto Highway 231, where there was no cover, no protection, no windbreaks. We ran straight into a sustained strong wind with a few gust thrown in. I have never been that cold in a race before! I thought my face was going to freeze! I had stuff to put on, but was I too cold to get it out my pocket and I didn't want to slow down even more than I already had. We had more than a mile of this strong headwind. Finally we made the turn toward the finish.

The last mile or so was sweet. A tailwind and rolling hills, with a downhill finish. I completed the course in 1.42.50, which is a little more than a minute slower than I hoped, but I managed to run 7.50s, which, considering the conditions, I am pretty pleased with. I also looked at my time from 2 years ago, and I run about 30 seconds faster this time.

I really enjoyed having Lester with me. He really helped keep me on pace. Even though the conditions were pretty tough, especially the last 7 miles, I enjoyed the day. They had pizza afterwards, so, hey, that made it even better!